On a Beaver Creek Village property closing at the March 2026 median of $3.26 million, roughly $77,000 leaves the transaction before anyone touches commissions, title, or prorated taxes. That figure is not a state tax, not a county fee, and not something a portal will show you next to the listing price. It is the Real Estate Transfer Assessment collected by Beaver Creek Resort Company, and it is the reason net sheets in this micro-market almost never match what buyers and sellers expect walking in.
Every transfer inside the Beaver Creek Resort Company boundary carries a Real Estate Transfer Assessment (RETA) of 2.375% of fair market value on real estate sales. That rate is fixed, published, and applies to every deed that changes hands here. Understanding where it comes from, who typically absorbs it, and how it compares to the fee structure two miles down the road in Avon or Arrowhead is the difference between a clean close and a last-week renegotiation.
Why the fee exists at all
Beaver Creek looks and functions like a town, but it is not one. Beaver Creek is not a municipality. It is part of unincorporated Eagle County. In order to provide the services it is tasked with, a variety of assessments are collected upon taxable sales. The Resort Company fills the role a town government would otherwise play, and its funding structure reflects that.
The Beaver Creek Resort Company of Colorado combines a homeowners association and a resort association with some municipal services added. The Resort Company, a Colorado non-profit corporation incorporated on April 30, 1979, was designed to help Beaver Creek become and remain a unique resort community. Its responsibilities include marketing, common-area maintenance, public safety, and the Design Review Board that keeps the village visually consistent.
That work is paid for through several stacked assessments, and RETA is a meaningful slice of the budget. In the fiscal year 2020 approved plan, real estate transfer assessments represented roughly 22.4% of total Resort Company revenue, second only to civic assessments on sales and lodging. In other words, this line item is structural. It does not go away, it is not waived for primary residents, and it is not folded into county recording fees.
Two facts follow from that. First, the assessment is a lien-backed obligation that title has to collect at closing, so there is no path to closing without addressing it. Second, because BCRC funds itself this way, buyers of Beaver Creek property should read the RETA less as a penalty and more as a paid membership in the machinery that keeps the village walkable, patrolled, and design-controlled.
How the fee stacks against every adjacent submarket
Buyers cross-shopping Beaver Creek against Arrowhead, Bachelor Gulch, Avon, and Vail rarely see these numbers laid out side by side. Every one of these micro-markets sits inside Eagle County, and every one has a different transfer structure at closing.
| Location | Rate on sales price | Collected by |
|---|---|---|
| Beaver Creek | 2.375% | Beaver Creek Resort Company |
| Town of Avon | 2.0% | Municipality |
| Arrowhead at Vail | 1.5% | Association |
| Town of Vail | 1.0% | Municipality |
| Town of Minturn | 1.0% | Municipality |
| Riverwalk at Edwards | 1.0% | Association |
| Villas at Brett Ranch | 1.0% | Association |
| Town of Gypsum | 1.0% | Municipality |
The comparison points on Avon, Vail, Minturn, Gypsum, Arrowhead, Riverwalk, and Brett Ranch come from a public reference maintained by a local Eagle County brokerage; the Beaver Creek figure is from BCRC's own assessments page.
The gap between Beaver Creek and the Town of Vail on identical purchase prices is significant. On a $4 million closing, the buyer or seller absorbs $95,000 inside BCRC versus $40,000 inside the Town of Vail. That $55,000 delta is not a factor most portal-driven cross-shopping accounts for, and it should be. It is one of the reasons two visually similar ski-in listings, one in Bachelor Gulch and one in Vail Village, are not actually the same transaction.
Who pays, and why the answer is "it depends"
Colorado does not prescribe who pays a private transfer assessment. In practice, the RETA is negotiated inside the purchase contract, and local custom in Beaver Creek tends to see the buyer pay it, though there are transactions where the seller absorbs it as part of the deal.
That flexibility matters right now. Redfin's March 2026 figures for Beaver Creek Village show a median sale price of $3.26 million, 116 median days on market, 8 closed sales, and a 95.5% sale-to-list ratio. Redfin also labels the area as not very competitive. A March 2026 Realtor.com Beaver Creek Village snapshot shows a 94% sale-to-list ratio and 124 median days on market. The broader county trend supports the same reading: Realtor.com's February 2026 Eagle County data shows 1,288 homes for sale, 101 median days on market, a 95% sale-to-list ratio, and homes selling 5.19% below asking on average.
What that means in practice: on a listing that has been sitting past 120 days, an informed buyer has room to structure an offer that either lowers the headline price or asks the seller to credit some portion of the RETA at closing. On a $3.26 million median, a seller-paid RETA credit is worth about $77,000 in effective purchase power. That is a materially larger concession than a token price reduction and, structured properly, it lands on the same net sheet the seller was already prepared to sign.
Sellers should model the opposite side of that math before listing. If comps in your building have been closing 5% below list and buyers in this environment are increasingly asking for RETA to be shared, your net sheet needs to reflect a realistic scenario, not a full-price 2019 comp.
The other BCRC assessments that show up after closing
RETA is the closing-day headline, but three additional Resort Company assessments shape ownership economics, especially for vacation-rental owners.
The common assessment is annual and property-based. Common assessments are annual fees based on the assessed valuation of your property times a mill rate established by the Resort Company Board annually; however, the rate has been capped at 20 mills. This assessment is billed on or before May of every year and is payable on or before June 30. The Resort Company common assessments do not replace usual property tax liabilities. This is on top of Eagle County property tax, not a substitute.
The civic and lodging civic assessments touch anyone renting the property short-term. BCRC collects assessments on all sales and short-term rentals within Beaver Creek. A Civic Assessment of 5.35% is charged on total sales and short term rentals and a Lodging Civic Assessment of 0.96% is charged on all short term rentals (less than thirty days). If a home or condo is rented to the same person or entity for thirty days or more it is considered a long-term rental and no assessments need to be collected.
Two consequences investors should model. First, if a property is rented at all, if a home or condo is rented out for more than four days in a month, the owner must also obtain a Lodging Beaver Creek Business License. Second, BCRC has engaged a monitoring company to track all STRs in Beaver Creek to help with licensing and assessment collection compliance, so the assumption that a light rental schedule stays under the radar no longer holds.
Layered together, a buyer purchasing a $3 million Beaver Creek condo for occasional personal use plus summer and winter rental should model, at minimum: a one-time 2.375% RETA at acquisition, an annual common assessment capped at 20 mills of assessed value, a 5.35% civic assessment plus 0.96% lodging civic assessment on gross rental receipts, and county property tax on top of all of it.
Reading the current market through the fee
The Beaver Creek market is not behaving like the seller's market portals sometimes suggest. Median days on market above 115 and sale-to-list ratios in the mid-90s are the kind of numbers where offer structure matters more than offer price. RETA is the single largest negotiable line item unique to this village, and it is the one most cross-shopping buyers overlook because it does not exist in Vail, Edwards, or most of unincorporated Eagle County outside Avon.
The practical takeaway is not that Beaver Creek is more expensive. It is that Beaver Creek transactions carry a fixed piece of friction that other Vail Valley closings do not, and in a market with 116-day medians, that friction is negotiable in a way it has not been for several years.
FAQ
Is RETA tax-deductible? It is a private assessment paid to a nonprofit corporation, not a state or local tax, so it is not treated the same as a deductible transfer tax. Buyers should confirm treatment with their own tax advisor before assuming any deduction.
Does RETA apply to intra-family transfers? All Quit Claim Deeds or Special Warranty Deeds for zero consideration are required to submit a Real Estate Transfer Assessment (RETA) Exemption Form. The exemption is not automatic; the form is required.
Do properties in Bachelor Gulch pay Beaver Creek RETA? Bachelor Gulch sits inside Beaver Creek Resort Company for these purposes. If you are unsure whether a specific address is inside the BCRC boundary, the assessments office at (970) 845-5971 can confirm before you draft an offer.
Can I roll RETA into my loan? It is a closing-day cost paid from settlement, not a financeable item on its own, though a buyer negotiating a seller credit can effectively achieve the same outcome inside the contract price.
If you are evaluating a Beaver Creek purchase or preparing to list, the difference between a well-structured net sheet and an average one is measured in tens of thousands of dollars on this specific line item. Jeff McAbee works directly with buyers and sellers on transaction structure across Beaver Creek, Bachelor Gulch, Arrowhead, and Vail Village. Schedule a consultation to walk through the numbers on a specific property before you write or accept an offer.
